Main menu

Post navigation

Anna Nicole Smith

I found myself very saddened by the death of Anna Nicole Smith. Not because of a sense of loss like when an artist I admire, or a great political figure passes. This was a simpler mourning, a recognition of the humanity in her passing, and the tragedy that her personal life had become. She now leaves behind a little girl who will never know her, and two men who having been battling over the girl’s paternity. I’m sure they’ll continue to duke it out because that little girl now comes with a bag of money tied to her big toe. That Anna Nicole’s son died so shortly after the birth of the girl was a strange and saddening loss, regardless of whether the woman was famous or not. That he died and was so quickly joined by his mother is almost unbelievable. If all of this was taking place on a soap opera even long time viewers might be strained to continue to watch, but this is real and it makes it all the more bizarre. How could it come to this?
The fact of the matter is that she was a train wreck of fame; she was the engine on the line of cars that include Britney, and Lindsey, and Paris, and whomever else seems so happy to ride those rails. And that engine is powered by drug-fueled relationships and the constant mistaking of a camera for a mirror and convicing yourself that because what you do ends up on television that what you do matters.
So, my sadness at her death is a recognition that at the center of it all was a sad woman with a sad life, who saw nothing but pills and problems, who left the trailer park but never left it behind, who’s entire life became a joke and who couldn’t escape it even at the happiest times of her life. I think it’s sad that she died as she did.
I think it’s worse that she’s being used to sell newspapers.